


Vanished! Episode 100: The Real Murder on the Orient Express

by DesertVixen



Category: Poirot - Agatha Christie
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Poirot Podcast, Poirot and Hastings were real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 21:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20477393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/pseuds/DesertVixen
Summary: AU true-crime podcast about Murder on the Orient Express





	Vanished! Episode 100: The Real Murder on the Orient Express

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rosencrantz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosencrantz/gifts).

She needed an idea for her one-hundredth episode, reflected Penelope Parker. 

_Vanished!_, a true crime podcast about missing persons cases, was her baby. She’d spent her whole adolescence buried in true crime and murder mysteries after she graduated from Nancy Drew, but she had actually started the podcast as a bit of a dare. 

No one had been more surprised than her when other people loved listening to it as much as she loved making it. Penelope had definitely underestimated the demand for listening to someone talk about how someone else had never been seen alive again, possibly due to the fact that everyone around her had merely tolerated it. Maybe she hadn’t been the only person who thought _Unsolved Mysteries_ counted as must-see TV, after all.

Missing persons cases just fascinated her. There was something about people vanishing that interested her. They were sad, and yet the not-knowing factor made them different from other cases because there was no closure, no chance to truly move on. Her first episode had been focused on Robin Graham, a college student who had disappeared in California twenty years before Penelope had even been born. Common sense said that Graham had to be dead – no one had heard from her since November of 1970, and her general physical description matched other missing women in the same area – but no one really knew for sure, except the person who had abducted her. At least her loss had led to improvements in how the California Highway Patrol dealt with stranded female motorists, so that was something. 

And yet, as much as Penelope knew that Robin Graham had to be long gone, there had been that tiny part of her that hoped somehow her podcast had made a difference. 

Some of the episodes dealt with more historical disappearances, such as her rather fanciful one on the Ninth Legion. 

Some of them dealt with missing persons whose remains had been found, but Penelope’s proudest episode had been Episode 55, dealing with a teen girl who had disappeared on her way home from a local high school party. Stacey Hamilton was one of the lucky ones – she had been found alive and returned to her family, safe and sound – and a tip from one of Penelope’s listeners had helped crack the case open. There had been other, but Stacey had been the first.

So, Episode 100 needed to be something special, something unique, and yes, something that would keep people talking about her podcast. She had been doing some research and pondering her options – maybe an update show would be a good bet. Of course, a lot of her shows didn’t have a good update, but she could figure something out.

Then she opened the email from a Felicia Hardman, and knew she had found her subject.

*** 

“I’m Penelope Parker, and you are listening to episode One Hundred of _Vanished!_” 

Penelope forced herself to relax in her chair while she reviewed her notes. At least she didn’t have to record this live – otherwise she was sure she and the podcast would never have survived the process.

“Today’s case is over ninety years old, even if Daisy Armstrong will never see her fourth birthday. Once considered the most famous kidnapping case in America, the culprit was identified as a man named Cassetti. However, Cassetti himself vanished into the sands of time.”

Penelope ran down the basics of the case – the fame of the family, the ransom note, the suspicions within the household, the tragedies that accompanied Daisy’s death – before it was time to get to the exciting part.

“However, is it possible that Cassetti did not escape, and that justice did find him? If you’re a true crime fan, it’s unlikely that you haven’t heard of Hercule Poirot, the famous Belgian detective whose exploits have been brought to us by the talented pen of Arthur Hastings, his long-time friend. Perhaps his greatest claim to fame was the 1936 ABC Murders, where Poirot’s work was instrumental to stopping a string of alphabetically-inspired murders to conceal the intended crime. But is it possible that Poirot was involved in an even more famous case – that of Daisy Armstrong – two years prior? One of my listeners has good reason to think so, and you’ll be the first to find out after a word from our sponsors!”

Penelope paused – the ads were always added in later, but it gave her an opportunity to refocus.

“In _The Poirot Papers_, her exhaustive collection of all Hercule Poirot’s known cases, crime writer Agatha Christie Mallowan has included a 1934 entry that lists Poirot as traveling on the Orient Express and presenting a rather convoluted solution to the murder of one Samuel Edward Ratchett, a fellow passenger on the train. With the train stopped by a snowfall, it might seem obvious that only someone who was already on the train could have committed the murder, yet none of the people onboard could have done so. However, Poirot proposed a solution that saw the murderer slip on and off the train at a station, and claimed that evidence was confused due to time zones and the victim neglecting to change his watch.”

Penelope smiled to herself. This was where it got good. 

“Felicia Hardman, the great-granddaughter of one of the other passengers, claims that everything written about this case by Mallowan is wrong. Based on papers found in her great-grandfather’s possession after his death, Felicia Hardman claims that in fact, Samuel Edward Ratchett was none other than Cassetti, the murderer of little Daisy Armstrong. Cyrus Hardman, a detective employed by the ultra-reputable McNeil’s Detective Agency of New York City, was supposedly engaged to protect Ratchett from “unspecified enemies”. However, in an undated manuscript, it would appear that Hardman had quite another role on the train – that he was, instead, one member of an unofficial jury that had not only passed sentence on Ratchett, but was there to bring him to eternal justice. Hardman claims that all the passengers traveling in the Calais Coach that evening were there as part of that jury – except that they got unlucky enough to draw Hercule Poirot as a wild card.”

She ran down the various passengers and what Hardman described as their connection to the Armstrong household – godmother, younger sister, trusted secretary, chauffeur and other servants, family friend – enjoying spinning out the story. It was an excellent story, she had to admit.

“Unfortunately, my attempts to locate other descendants of the passengers was not successful, so Felicia Hardman’s story stands on its own. The Hastings Trust would not discuss the case, as Arthur Hastings was not present for the actual events on the Orient Express. The Mallowan Estate stands by the official account of Ratchett’s murder on the Orient Express, citing newspaper articles and Poirot’s own public statements, per their policy. It’s quite possible that Hardman may have made the story up, or have been experimenting with a bit of fiction in his old age.”

Penelope leaned closer to her microphone – never mind that there was no one to see it. 

“But what if Hardman’s story is true? Would the great Hercule Poirot have thrown the case and put forth a solution that relies on an unknown intruder, a “small dark man with a womanish voice” who conveniently could be read as a description of Poirot himself? Is it possible that Poirot would consider Hardman and his fellow passengers to have dealt out justice? Don’t vanish on me during this word from our sponsors!”

She was in the home stretch, and Penelope was convinced this was going to be the best episode she had ever aired. 

“A critical examination of _The Poirot Papers_ due to be published in time for your Christmas shopping, _Little Grey Cells: The Man and His Method_, suggests that the latter may be the case. Author Ariadne West has concentrated on the more human side of Poirot's cases, and she proposes that it may well have been in Poirot’s character to decide that the needs of justice have been satisfied. West cites several Poirot cases in which it appears the killer was permitted to take what used to be termed “the gentleman’s way out”, including Lady Lauren Westholme, Amy Folliat, Jacqueline de Bellefort and Magdala Buckley. Her stand is that such an action does not appear to have been out of the ordinary for Poirot, who was more interested in justice than the strict letter of the law. Mallowan and Hastings’ own writings would appear to back up this assertion, as both of them cited Poirot’s fear that murderers must be stopped, as each murder gets easier and easier. Would he have decided that these twelve people were no further threat to society? I think it's entirely possible.”

Time to wrap it up, Penelope decided, or she was going to have to edit. She hated editing.

“They say truth is stranger than fiction. What story seems stranger, the convoluted official solution to the murder on the Orient Express, or the possibility that twelve people close to the victims decided to act where the law could not? Would an accomplished detective have risked his own reputation to shield them? Was Samuel Edward Ratchett truly Cassetti? Was justice done after all? We may never know for sure, with all of the principals dead. I would like to think that Daisy Armstrong’s killer was indeed punished for his crime. Don’t forget to comment and tell me what you think. I’m Penelope Parker, and this is _Vanished!_”

She ended the recording and leaned back. Penelope had to admit that Hardman’s assertion was an elegant one, even if it did rely on a few thousand moving pieces. It was definitely a more satisfying one than the official solution. Of course, as she had learned, many crimes didn’t have a satisfactory ending.

Still, she found herself hoping that it was true. 

Either way, this episode would keep people talking. She'd also been promised a signed hardcover by Ariadne West in return for plugging what looked like it would be an excellent book, so she was definitely chalking up Episode 100 as a win.

Penelope couldn’t wait to see what people had to say.

**Author's Note:**

> So many notes! First, I loved loved loved your prompt, and was stoked to get it. I'm also not a podcast recorder/listener, so hopefully any liberties will be forgiven.
> 
> I've chosen to focus on the book version (partly because the last two adaptations have irritated me to no end with Poirot's attitude to the case). In the book, Poirot is very clear that he is all right with their actions, because justice has been done. Both the Suchet adaptation and the Branagh movie have muddled this one.
> 
> There's plenty of references. 
> 
> Penelope Parker is a nod to the Mildred Wirt (original Nancy Drew) series Penny Parker.
> 
> Once you make Poirot and Hastings real people, I thought it would be nice to tip the hat to Dame Agatha as well by casting her as a true crime chronicler. It also makes sense to me that Poirot would not have bothered to clue in the Yugo-Slavian police as to Ratchett's true identity.
> 
> Rightly or wrongly, I have always felt that the description of the man in the Wagon Lits uniform was supposed to be like Poirot. 
> 
> Ariadne West is a nod to Mrs. Oliver (I was trying to work one of her descendants in but that seemed too contrived) and Raymond West, novelist nephew of Christie's preferred sleuth, Miss Marple.
> 
> I don't believe Lady Westholme has an official first name, so Lauren is a nod to Lauren Bacall's excellent performance playing her in the 1980 movie version of Appointment with Death. My read of Dead Man's Folly has always been either that she's dying shortly of natural causes or planning to help herself to the Veronal, even if it's not as explicit as in the other three examples.
> 
> As for the other cases presented on Vanished!, Stacey Hamilton is fictional. The Ninth Legion is...complicated and your POV probably largely depends on whether or not you read Rosemary Sutcliff. Last, but not least, Robin Graham is real and was never seen again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Robin_Graham
> 
> I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it!


End file.
